What that something
was I could hardly have defined: but the feeling was always with me.
It was as if at each bend of the shore I expected to find a temple
with pillars, or a column crowning the next promontory; or, where the
coast-track wound down to the little haven, to happen on a votive
tablet erected to Poseidon or to "Helen's brothers, lucent stars";
nay, to meet with Odysseus' fisherman carrying an oar on his
shoulder, or even, in an amphitheatre of the cliffs, to surprise
Apollo himself and the Nine seated on a green plat whence a waterfall
gushed down the coombe to the sandy beach . . . . This evening on my
way along the cliffs--perhaps because I had spent a day bathing in
sunshine in the company of white-flannelled youths--the old sensation
had returned to haunt me. I spoke of it.
"'Not here, O Apollo--'" murmured the Senior Tutor.
"You quote against your own scepticism," said I. "The coast is right
enough; it _is_"
Where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.
"It was made to invite the authentic gods--only the gods never found
it out."
"Did they not?" asked the Vicar quietly. The question took us a
little aback, and after a pause his next words administered another
small shock.
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